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Privacy

Thank you for visiting pacer.uscourts.gov. Please find the privacy and security policies for pacer.uscourts.gov and the electronic public access applications.

Policy for pacer.uscourts.gov

Information Routinely Collected and Stored

Our privacy policy outlines the types of information we collect when you visit our site and how such information will be used. This policy applies only to the pacer.uscourts.gov website and not related applications, such as PACER, PACER Case Locator, or CM/ECF.

If you visit pacer.uscourts.gov to view or download information, we collect and store the following information:

  • The name of the domain from which you accessed the internet, such as a web search engine.
  • The IP address from which you accessed the website. An IP address is a number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are accessing the internet.
  • The date and time you accessed our site.
  • The type of browser and operating system used to access the pacer.uscourts.gov site.
  • The pages you visit.
  • If you visit pacer.uscourts.gov by clicking on a link from another website, the address of the referral site.

This information is used solely for the purpose of evaluating and maintaining our site and is not used for associating search terms or patterns of site navigation with individual users. From this information, we learn what users like and need; what kind of technology they are using; how often they visit; and other valuable information that helps us to offer our visitors the best site possible. Pacer.uscourts.gov may anonymize and provide this information to third party entities for the purposes of research analysis.

Information You Provide

If you choose to provide us with personal information to be added to an email list, submit information through our Contact Us page, or submit feedback on the website, it will be used only for the purpose(s) you state. We collect such information only to respond to your requests or improve the website. We do not share that information with others, and we do not collect information for commercial marketing.

Security Notice

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.

Anyone using this system expressly consents to such monitoring and is advised that if such monitoring reveals evidence of possible abuse or criminal activity, such evidence may be provided to appropriate law enforcement officials.

Unauthorized attempts to upload or change information on this server are strictly prohibited and may be punishable by law, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

Policy for Electronic Public Access Applications

Protecting our users’ personal information is important. This privacy policy applies when you visit or use our applications, which include PACER registration, Manage My Account, PACER Login, and the PACER Case Locator. We collect and store the following information:

  • The name of the domain from which you access the Internet.
  • The date and time you access our site.

We will not give, sell or transfer any personal information to third parties, except in the following cases:

  • To secure payment of delinquent fees, we may transmit identifying information to a collection agency;
  • If compelled by law;
  • If you direct us to do so; and
  • In other legally limited circumstances (for example, to protect your account from fraud).

For site management, information is collected for statistical purposes, such as assessing the number of visitors to the different sections of our site, identifying what information is of most and least interest, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas. This information will be kept confidential.

You also may decide to send us personal identifying information—your mailing address, for example—in a request for information. Information collected in this manner is used solely for responding to the request for information. We will never ask you to send you PACER password to us in an email, and you should never reply to an electronic mail message that asks for this information.

For billing purposes, when you access court documents, we keep track of basic information about each transaction. This includes the account, court, document type, search criteria, case number, time, date and number of pages. We also use session cookies to identify users. We will not provide this information to anyone, except for in the situations set out above.

If you pay by check, your check will be converted from a paper transaction to an electronic funds transfer in most cases. The conversion will be made by our authorized financial institution, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Treasury, which contains information on negative check information or failed Automated Clearing House (ACH) debit entry transactions for certain checks that have been presented electronically to Federal agencies. Federal agencies will have access to check verification databases to determine the validity and/or check writing history of the payor. Financial Management Service will not disclose information from the Master Verification for purposes of check verification. Information may be used for law enforcement purposes and for other routine uses, such as systems development (See 68 Fed Reg. 5691 (2003) for a complete list of possible uses). Making payment by check is voluntary but a decision not to do so will require you to make payment by some other method.

Any attempt to collect data from PACER in a manner which avoids billing is strictly prohibited and may result in criminal prosecution or civil action. PACER privileges will be terminated if, in the judgment of judiciary personnel, they are being misused. Misuse includes, but is not limited to, using an automated process to repeatedly access those portions of the PACER application that do not assess a fee (i.e. calendar events report or case header information) for purposes of collecting case information). PACER account usage will be monitored for inappropriate use.

Security Policy

To identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage, this Official United States Government System employs software programs to monitor network traffic. Unauthorized attempts to upload or change information stored on this system may result in criminal prosecution.

To avoid unauthorized use of any our services or applications, we recommend that you do not leave your terminal unattended after logging into any of our services or applications. If you must leave your terminal unattended, close your open browsers. We also recommend not bookmarking pages past the login screen of any of our applications and using a password-protected screen saver.